Let Him Find Her
by Julia451
Summary: Janine/Egon one-shot from their friends' POV. Why was Egon the first to find Janine in the climax of "Janine, You've Changed"? A look at what that night was like for Peter, Ray, and Winston. (*NOT* one of those POV shot-by-shot recaps.)


Was wandering around in the dark worriedly calling a woman's name something people did for fun in Brooklyn these days? Why else would it not be obvious to that moron that someone was in trouble and that the guy who woke him up wasn't searching for someone in the middle of the night for his own amusement? Unfortunately, Peter had no time to stop and ask him this, or even to turn around and tell him that Janine threw much harder than he did. He rubbed the back of his head where the shoe had hit him and walked on, willing the needle on the PKE meter to rise and show him the trail that would bring this nightmare of suspense to an end.

There was one good thing about the encounter, however – it immediately occurred to Peter that calling for Janine might only make it harder to find her, if this thing had convinced her to run from them. What if Egon was right, and Janine had already turned against them and would only run faster if she heard him? The thought made him shudder, but he kept his mouth shut from then on as he crept through the shadows, trying his best not to be seen or heard as he kept his own eyes and ears open for any sign of his friend or her "fairy godmother." He hoped he'd be the first to find her and make sure this thing knew she'd picked on the wrong girl!

Peter didn't know how long he continued his search in silence before he heard a heavy footfall behind him. He instinctively reached right for his thrower (the sound of the dropped meter hitting the ground barely registering in his mind) and aimed it as he spun around, only to find himself face to face with Winston. The heightened fight-or-flight response was the most annoying drawback about hunting for something alone in the dark.

Winston raised his right hand in front of him and said calmly, "At ease, Peter," as he walked toward his friend. "It's just me."

Peter released some cross between a groan and a sigh as he returned the thrower to its holster on his back and bent down to pick up the PKE meter. "I know it's standard protocol to ask, 'Any luck?' in this situation, but I have a feeling I know what the answer's gonna be."

"You'd be right," Winston said with a worried frown before he closed his eyes and shook his head. "Man, I thought for sure we'd have found her by now."

"Me, too," Peter agreed. "Her new friend sure works fast."

"Seen Ray or Egon anywhere?"

"Not since we split up. Think one of them found her?"

"Doubt it, or we would've seen the fireworks." Winston looked down at the stubbornly unresponsive PKE meter in his hand. "Still nothing."

Peter looked at his own as if expecting it to show anything different. "Nada." His anger was starting to displace his worry. "I don't believe this – how far could she have gone? We don't have time to run in circles all over Brooklyn!"

Winston looked back up at him with eyes narrowed in determination. "Come on – we're wasting time." On that note, he turned and led his friend out of the alley. He looked up and down the street once before asking, "Where to next?"

Peter just held out both his hands, at a complete loss for suggestions. "What's the point? We don't know where to look. They could be anywhere."

"Not anywhere..." Winston said thoughtfully. "Where would she take her?"

"Beauty parlor?"

"I'm serious."

"So am I. This thing does beauty, what else would it like?"

"What does it _like_...?" Winston repeated to himself.

Peter shrugged but continued to guess: "Dress shop? Nail salon? Nightclub?"

"No..." Winston snapped his fingers as it hit him. "It likes the water! Remember what Ray said?"

As usual, Winston was the first to find the solution that eluded his overthinking scientist teammates. "You think...?" Peter gasped.

"Where else?"

It was a long shot, but at least it was something to go on. "The waterfront! We've gotta hurry! Come on!" With that, Peter took off running, his partner less than a second behind him.

"I hope we're not too late," Winston said as he caught up with his companion.

"Of course we're not... we can't be..." Peter didn't waste any more breath on talking, but he couldn't help thinking of the miles of riverfront and canals they had to search and how little this narrowed it down.

Winston didn't give him much time to brood over that daunting picture: "She would've taken the quickest way. We've gotta get back to Janine's place, head for the nearest..."

"Hey! Guys!" Without breaking their stride, the two runners looked across the street towards the voice and saw a pudgy figure with red hair dart under a streetlight as it raced towards them. "Find something?" Ray asked when he reached them.

"Ray," Winston asked him as they all stopped, "you said these things like the water, right?"

The ghost-enthusiast nodded. "That's where they're strongest. But once they find a victim, they'll travel as far as they need to to stay with them."

"Then that must be where it took Janine, right?" Peter asked next.

"The water?" Ray held his chin in his hand as he considered the theory. "It makes sense, but wouldn't it be too obvious? If she wants to hide from us, that's the last place she'd go."

"But if it's where she's the strongest, maybe she thinks it's worth the risk," Winston replied. "It's what I would do."

"Good point... Egon must have thought of that," Ray said suddenly.

"What do you mean?" asked Peter.

"I saw him running west about 15 minutes ago. I called for him, but he didn't hear me. He must've been heading toward the river."

Of course Egon would have figured it out first. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's move!" Winston waved for the other two to follow him as he started running again.

It wasn't long before they were back at Janine's apartment building. Ecto-1 still was parked right where they'd left it out front. Winston reached it first and immediately pulled open the front driver's side door. "Everybody in!" He climbed halfway in and gestured over his shoulder. "Quickest way to the river from here's that way. Maybe we can catch Egon."

"Hold on!" said Ray as they reached the car.

Guessing what he was getting at, Peter added, "It'll be faster on foot."

Winston pondered that for a second or two, quickly weighing their speed against sticking to the main roads, before getting back out and closing the door again. "Guess you're right. Come on, let's go!"

They both started walking away, only to hear Ray call out, "Wait a minute!"

Peter turned around and, surprised to see his friend hadn't budged an inch, stopped and told him, "No time for chit-chat, Ray! Come on, we've wasted enough time already!"

"I know, but maybe we should..."

Winston ran back and grabbed his arm. "Save it for later, Ray. We've got a ghost to bust."

Ray didn't resist as Winston pulled him a few steps, but he kept talking: "I was just thinking that..."

"Less thinking, more running!" said Peter, grabbing his other arm. "No time for that now, Ray."

Winston was surprised they needed to remind him what was at stake here. "Yeah, we've gotta hurry and find Egon and Janine."

Ray pulled his arms free and said firmly, "Maybe we should let _him_ find her." That got his friends' attention. They exchanged a confused look while Ray went on: "Think about it, guys – even if we find her, then what? What happens then? Even if we trap the ghost, that won't fix everything. You know what people are like after a ghost's been messing with their head. Confronting them about it can get... pretty intense. Janine's on the brink of losing her humanity. She doesn't trust us anymore – catching the ghost won't change that, and convincing Janine to turn on her is _not_ gonna be easy. Either of you know what you'd say to her right now?" His two companions both turned towards him but said nothing; Peter merely crossed his arms. "Me, neither, and she probably wouldn't listen to us anyway. If we show up, we might make things worse – might push her over the edge. But if anyone's got a good chance of helping her through this... well, we all know it's Egon."

Neither of the others tried to deny this or needed to ask what he meant. Peter, however, did point out, "The question is: does _Egon_ know that?"

"He knows it," Winston said with certainty, nodding and crossing his arms, too. "He just can't admit it."

"Well, he has no choice now," Ray said matter-of-factly, having complete faith in his absent friend. "If he can't bring her back, we sure can't. If we really want to get Janine back, maybe it's best if we wait and let him save her – that's what she'd want, isn't it?"

Just stay out of it? The idea went against every male instinct the heroes had, but, when they took the time to think it over, they couldn't argue Ray didn't have a point. The heart of the team _was_ unquestionably smarter than the rest of them about this emotional stuff. They started to doubt whether rushing in, throwers blasting, was the brightest move. What was the best way to play this? Another few seconds passed in silent deliberation before Winston uncrossed his arms. "You may have something there, Ray."

Peter seemed to catch his confidence. "Yeah... I can't believe we didn't think of that. I mean, everyone over the age of six knows the universal antidote for mind control, right?"

"Exactly," Ray said with relief.

"He's right," Peter said decisively, all his resolution returning. "Let Egon find her. It's the best chance we've got of saving Janine."

"Right," Winston agreed with a nod before gesturing towards Ecto-1. "Come on, let's take the car – hopefully, the real Janine'll be back by the time we get there."

"She will," the eternally optimistic Ray said as he climbed into the front passenger seat. "She's stronger than any ghost."

"I just hope _she_ remembers that," Peter said ominously as Winston pulled away from the curb and made an illegal U-turn.

"Now I know how the Fellowship of the Crucifix felt," Winston mused aloud as he drove.

"The what?" the two very puzzled passengers asked simultaneously.

Winston shook his head as he realized what he'd said. "Sorry, that's what I call Van Helsing and the rest of them in _Dracula_, after they band together and swear to defeat the vampire, avenge Lucy, and save Mina."

Peter leaned forward from his spot in the back. "Who's Mina?"

"The woman he bites and forces to drink his blood, slowly turning her into a vampire. The only way they can save her is by destroying him before the process is complete, and they never give up, even when have to chase him across Europe."

Privately hoping they wouldn't have to travel that far, Peter asked next, "Wow, persistent – were they all in love with her or something?"

"One of them was her husband – the rest just loved her like a sister."

There was a pause before Peter sighed, "Yep, that's us." Nobody contradicted him.

Like Winston had predicted earlier, they had no trouble spotting the battle that had begun. They drove as close to the light show as they could before parking the car next to some warehouse, where it would no doubt have a parking ticket if not a missing wheel or two when they got back, and ran towards the docks, proton guns armed and ready. They arrived on the scene just in time to see a wild, glowing spectre that resembled Janine blast Egon off his feet.

Blind with fear for his friend, Peter instantly raised and primed his weapon, before Ray reached out and pushed it down. "Peter, no, it's Janine!"

"She's gonna kill him!"

Ray shook his head. "She wouldn't do that!"

"She's not..."

Before he could get any farther, Winston stepped up next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Wait."

"Until what?!"

"He's trying to talk her down," Ray said as calmly as he could under the circumstances.

"I don't care!" Peter wrenched his thrower free and aimed it again.

Winston grabbed it this time. "_Egon_ would care! We screw this up, and he'll never forgive us. _Wait_."

His jaw clenched in frustration, Peter turned back to the scene in front of them. He felt himself straining against the weapon in his hands, fighting the urge to press the trigger. Hurting Janine was the last thing he wanted to do, but if they let her hurt Egon, she'd never forgive them, either... _or_ herself. _Come on, Janine, snap out of it_, he begged her in his mind. _Remember who you are. You don't want to do this!_ He tried to say it, to step forward and speak up, but his tongue was as paralyzed as his legs. All three of them were afraid to make a move, lest they tip the balance the wrong way.

Winston now judged it was safe to remove his hand. He powered up and aimed his own proton gun, not at Janine, but at the demon behind her. "Be ready, guys. When we get a clear shot..."

"Not yet," Ray warned him. "Janine has to reject it on her own, or she'll never be free." However, when Peter followed Winston's lead, he did the same, so that when that happened, they'd be ready. He looked frantically back and forth between the berserk Janine and the defenseless Egon. Did Egon know what he needed to do? That he was the only one who could do it? Was he brave enough to make that move? _Don't let us down, Egon_, Ray silently pleaded. _Please don't make us do it..._

Winston could sense Peter cringe next to him when Egon stripped off his proton pack, refusing to fight back. "Wait for it..." he slowly reminded him before Peter could do anything stupid.

"Run for it, Egon," Peter whispered under his breath. "If you can't blast her, just get out of there." They'd all been idiots to think he could do this! What were they thinking?! He'd never...

"... remember this... I love you!"

In spite of the situation, Ray couldn't help smiling, although the intense glare never went out of his eyes. Peter gasped and blinked as if he couldn't believe what he'd just heard. Winston was the only one whose expression didn't change, even when Janine turned on her proverbial vampire, using the very powers she'd given her against her. Without dropping his focus, he still managed to think, _Yep, just like Mina Harker..._

"All right, guys!" Ray finally yelled when Janine had made her choice clear. There was no reason to hold back anymore. He quickly reached behind him and traded his thrower for a trap. "Now?"

"Why?" Peter wondered. "Doesn't look like she needs any help."

He was right – Janine was doing just fine on her own for a while, and they only risked hitting her by accident if they interfered. But her opponent had a lot more experience and eventually got the upper hand. As soon as Janine was down out of the way, Peter made the call: "Hit 'em!" He couldn't remember the last time he'd wanted to blast a ghost this badly.

None of them dropped their guard even after Ray closed the trap – they still couldn't be sure it was over. Was Janine really back? Had Egon found her too late? Had they attacked too soon? Not until they watched a calm, beaming Janine throw her arms around Egon did they relax and Ray shoulder the only weapon still drawn. They'd won their friend back – it was over.

"Thanks, Egon... all of you guys."

Ray, the least surprised amongst them by how readily Egon returned the embrace, was consequently the only one able to reply. "Any time." Now what? The two of them would probably want to be alone right now. Anything the rest of them wanted to discuss with her about this could wait until later. "Listen, we'd better get back to the car before somebody strips it..."

_This is it_,Peter thought as he looked at Egon with a hopeful smile. This was the moment they learned if anything good had come out of this ordeal. _If he agrees and comes with us, there's no hope for him. But if he says..._

"You guy go on ahead, I'll catch up in a minute."

… _he's finally got it_. Not about to object, the three onlookers obediently strolled away, casting three parting smiles and a wink or two on the couple they left behind them.

Peter summed it up as he took the steaming trap from Ray: "Another successful night." Before they turned around the corner of the warehouse, they stopped to take one last look at Janine and Egon, unsure which of them they were more proud of.

All they knew for sure was that this was the perfect ending.


End file.
